Gregory Duke

“Is it possible, in the final analysis, for one human being to achieve perfect understanding of another?
We can invest enormous time and energy in serious efforts to know another person, but in the end, how close can we come to that person's essence? We convince ourselves that we know the other person well, but do we really know anything important about anyone?”
― Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

“When a person undergoes such a drastic transformation, there's simply nothing anyone else can do but sit back and let them get on with it.”
― Han Kang, The Vegetarian

“Because we are all related to each other, none of us is an island; all of us are a part of the whole. Men are not separate. The separation between oneself and another is not real.”
― Thich Thien-An, Zen Philosophy, Zen Practice

“But even so, every now and then I would feel a violent stab of loneliness. The very water I drink, the very air I breathe, would feel like long, sharp needles. The pages of a book in my hands would take on the threatening metallic gleam of razor blades. I could hear the roots of loneliness creeping through me when the world was hushed at four o'clock in the morning.”
― Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle